The Surgeon

Twenty-six

The Sturdee Farm was the only house at the end of a long dirt road. It was an old Cape with chipping white paint and a porch that sagged in the middle beneath a burden of stacked firewood.

Rizzoli sat in her car for a moment, too tired to step out. And too demoralized by what her once-promising career had come down to: sitting alone on this dirt road, contemplating the uselessness of walking up those steps and knocking on that door. Talking to some bewildered woman who just happened to have black hair. She thought of Ed Geiger, another Boston cop who’d also parked his car on a dirt road one day, and had decided, at the age of forty-nine, that it really was the end of the road for him. Rizzoli had been the first detective to arrive on the scene. While all the other cops had stood around that car with its blood-splattered windshield, shaking their heads and murmuring sadly about poor Ed, Rizzoli had felt little sympathy for a cop pathetic enough to blow his own brains out.

It’s so easy, she thought, suddenly aware of the weapon on her hip. Not her service weapon, which she’d turned over to Marquette, but her own, from home. A gun could be your best friend or your worst enemy. Sometimes both at once.

But she was no Ed Geiger; she was no loser who’d eat her gun. She turned off the engine and reluctantly stepped out of the car to do her job.

Rizzoli had lived all her life in the city, and the silence of this place was eerie to her. She climbed the porch steps, and every creak of the wood seemed magnified. Flies buzzed around her head. She knocked on the door, waited. Gave the knob an experimental twist and found it locked. She knocked again, then called out, her voice ringing with startling loudness: “Hello?”

By now the mosquitoes had found her. She slapped at her face and saw a dark smear of blood on her palm. To hell with country life; at least in the city the bloodsuckers walked on two legs and you could see them coming.

She gave the door a few more loud knocks, slapped at a few more mosquitoes, then gave up. No one seemed to be home.

She circled around to the back of the house, scanning for signs of forced entry, but all the windows were shut; all the screens were in place. The windows were too high for an intruder to climb through without a ladder, as the house was built upon a raised stone foundation.

She turned from the house and surveyed the backyard. There was an old barn and a farm pond, green with scum. A lone mallard drifted dejectedly in the water — probably the reject of his flock. There was no sign of any attempt at a garden — just knee-high weeds and grass and more mosquitoes. A lot of them.

Tire ruts led to the barn. A swath of grass had been flattened by the recent passage of a car.

One last place to check.

She tramped along the track of squashed grass to the barn and hesitated. She had no search warrant, but who was going to know? She’d just take a peek to confirm there was no car inside.

She grasped the handles and swung open the heavy doors.

Sunlight streamed in, slicing a wedge through the barn’s gloom, and motes of dust swirled in the abrupt disturbance of air. She stood frozen, staring at the car parked inside.

It was a yellow Mercedes.

Icy sweat trickled down her face. So quiet; except for a fly buzzing in the shadows, it was too damn quiet.

She didn’t remember unsnapping her holster and reaching for her weapon. But suddenly there it was in her hand, as she moved toward the car. She looked in the driver’s window, one quick glance to confirm it was unoccupied. Then a second, longer look, scanning the interior. Her gaze fell on a dark clump lying on the front passenger seat. A wig.

Where does the hair for most black wigs come from? The Orient.

The black-haired woman.

She remembered the hospital surveillance video on the day Nina Peyton was killed. In none of the tapes had they spotted Warren Hoyt arriving on Five West.

Because he walked onto the surgical ward as a woman, and walked out as a man.

A scream.

She spun around to face the house, her heart pounding. Cordell?

She was out of the barn like a shot, sprinting through the knee-high grass, straight toward the back door of the house.

Locked.

Lungs heaving like bellows, she backed up, eyeing the door, the frame. Kicking open doors had more to do with adrenaline than muscle power. As a rookie cop and the only female on her team, Rizzoli had been the one ordered to kick down a suspect’s door. It was a test, and the other cops expected, perhaps even hoped, that she would fail. While they stood waiting for her to humiliate herself, Rizzoli had focused all her resentment, all her rage, on that door. With only two kicks, she’d splintered it open, and charged through like the Tasmanian Devil.

That same adrenaline was roaring through her now as she pointed her weapon at the frame and squeezed off three shots. She slammed her heel against the door. Wood splintered. She kicked it again. This time it flew open and she was through, wheeling in a crouch, gaze and weapon simultaneously sweeping the room. A kitchen. Shades down, but enough light to see there was no one there. Dirty dishes in the sink. The refrigerator humming, burbling.

Is he here? Is he in the next room, waiting for me?

Christ, she should have worn a vest. But she had not expected this.

Sweat slid between her breasts, soaking into her sports bra. She spotted a phone on the wall. Edged toward it and lifted the receiver off the hook. No dial tone. No chance to call for backup.

She left it hanging and sidled to the doorway. Glanced into the next room and saw a living room, a shabby couch, a few chairs.

Where was Hoyt? Where?

She moved into the living room. Halfway across, she gave a squeak of fright as her beeper vibrated. Shit. She turned it off and continued across the living room.

In the foyer she halted, staring.

The front door hung wide open.

He’s out of the house.

She stepped onto the porch. As mosquitoes whined around her head, she scanned the front yard, looking beyond the dirt driveway, where her car was parked, to the tall grass and the nearby fringe of woods with its ragged edge of advancing saplings. Too many places out there to hide. While she’d been battering like a stupid bull at the back door, he’d slipped out the front door and fled into the woods.

Cordell is in the house. Find her.

She stepped back into the house and hurried up the stairs. It was hot in the upper rooms, and airless, and she was sweating rivers as she quickly searched the three bedrooms, the bathroom, the closets. No Cordell.

God, she was going to suffocate in here.

She went back down the stairs, and the silence of the house made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. All at once, she knew that Cordell was dead. That what she’d heard from the barn must have been a mortal cry, the last sound uttered from a dying throat.

She returned to the kitchen. Through the window over the sink, she had an unobstructed view of the barn.

He saw me walk through the grass, cross to that barn. He saw me open those doors. He knew I’d find the Mercedes. He knew his time was up.

So he finished it. And he ran.

The refrigerator clunked a few times and fell silent. She heard her own heartbeat, pattering like a snare drum.

Turning, she saw the door to the cellar. The only place she hadn’t searched.

She opened the door and saw darkness gaping below. Oh hell, she hated this, walking from the light, descending down those steps to what she knew would be a scene of horror. She didn’t want to do it, but she knew Cordell had to be down there.

Rizzoli reached into her pocket for the mini-Maglite. Guided by its narrow beam, she took a step down, then another. The air felt cooler, moister.

She smelled blood.

Something brushed across her face and she jerked back, startled. Let out a sharp breath of relief when she realized it was only a pull chain for a light, swinging above the stairs. She reached up and gave the chain a tug. Nothing happened.

The penlight would have to do.

She aimed the beam at the steps again, lighting her way as she descended, holding her weapon close to her body. After the stifling heat upstairs, the air down here felt almost frigid, chilling the sweat on her skin.

She reached the bottom of the stairs, her shoes landing on packed earth. Even cooler down here, the smell of blood stronger. The air thick and damp. Silent, so silent; still as death. The loudest sound was her own breath, rushing in and out of her lungs.

She swung the beam in an arc, almost screamed when her reflection flashed right back at her. She stood with weapon aimed, her heart hammering, as she saw what it was that reflected the light.

Glass jars. Large apothecary jars, lined up on a shelf. She did not need to look at the objects floating inside to know what those jars contained.

His souvenirs.

There were six jars, each one labeled with a name. More victims than they ever knew.

The last one was empty, but the name was already written on the label, the container ready and waiting for its prize. The best prize of all.

Catherine Cordell.

Rizzoli swung around, her Maglite zigzagging around the cellar, flitting past massive posts and foundation stones, and coming to an abrupt halt on the far corner. Something black was splashed on the wall.

Blood.

She shifted the beam, and it fell directly on Cordell’s body, wrists and ankles bound with duct tape to the bed. Blood glistened, fresh and wet, on her flank. On one white thigh was a single crimson handprint where the Surgeon had pressed his glove onto her flesh, as though to leave his mark. The tray of surgical instruments was still there by the bed, a torturer’s assortment of tools.

Oh god. I was so close to saving you….

Sick with rage, she moved the beam of her light up the length of Cordell’s blood-splashed torso until it stopped at the neck. There was no gaping wound, no coup de grace.

The light suddenly wavered. No, not the light; Cordell’s chest had moved!

She’s still breathing.

Rizzoli ripped the duct tape off Cordell’s mouth and felt warm breath against her hand. Saw Cordell’s eyelids flutter.

Yes!

Felt a burst of triumph yet at the same time a niggling sense that something was terribly wrong. No time to think about it. She had to get Cordell out of here.

Holding the Maglite between her teeth, she swiftly cut both Cordell’s wrists free and felt for a pulse. She found one — weak, but definitely present.

Still, she could not shake the sense that something was wrong. Even as she started to cut the tape binding Cordell’s right ankle, even as she reached toward the left ankle, the alarms were going off in her head. And then she knew why.

That scream. She’d heard Cordell’s scream all the way from the barn.

But she’d found Cordell’s mouth covered with tape.

He took it off. He wanted her to scream. He wanted me to hear it.

A trap.

Instantly her hand went for her gun, which she’d laid on the bed. She never reached it.

The two-by-four slammed into her temple, a blow so hard it sent her sprawling facedown on the packed earthen floor. She struggled to rise to her hands and knees.

The two-by-four came whistling at her again, whacked into her side. She heard ribs crack, and the breath whooshed out of her. She rolled onto her back, the pain so terrible she could not draw air into her lungs.

A light came on, a single bulb swaying far overhead.

He stood above her, his face a black oval beneath the cone of light. The Surgeon, eyeing his new prize.

She rolled onto her uninjured side and tried to push herself off the ground.

He kicked her arm out from under her and she collapsed onto her back again, the impact jarring her broken ribs. She gave a cry of agony and could not move. Even as he stepped closer. Even as she saw the two-by-four looming over her head.

His boot came down on her wrist, crushing it against the ground.

She screamed.

He reached toward the instrument tray and picked up one of the scalpels.

No. God, no.

He dropped to a crouch, his boot still holding down her wrist, and raised the scalpel. Brought it down in a merciless arc toward her open hand.

A shriek this time, as steel penetrated her flesh and pierced straight through to the earthen floor, skewering her hand to the ground.

He picked up another scalpel from the tray. Grabbed her right hand and pulled, extending her right arm. He stamped his boot down, pinning her wrist. Again he raised the scalpel. Again, he brought it down, stabbing through flesh and earth.

This time, her scream was weaker. Defeated.

He rose and stood gazing at her for a moment, the way a collector admires the bright new butterfly he has just pinned to the board.

He went to the instrument tray and picked up a third scalpel. With both her arms stretched out, her hands staked to the ground, Rizzoli could only watch and wait for the final act. He walked around behind her and crouched down. Grasped the hair at the crown of her head and yanked it backward, hard, extending her neck. She was staring straight up at him, and still his face was little more than a dark oval. A black hole, devouring all light. She could feel her carotids bounding at her throat, pulsing with each beat of her heart. Blood was life itself, flowing through her arteries and veins. She wondered how long she would stay conscious after the blade did its work. Whether death would be a gradual fadeout to black. She saw its inevitability. All her life she had been a fighter, all her life she had raged against defeat, but in this she was conquered. Her throat lay bare, her neck arched backward. She saw the gleam of the blade and closed her eyes as he touched it to her skin.

Lord, let it be quick.

She heard him take a preparatory breath, felt his grip suddenly tighten on her hair.

The blast of the gun shocked her.

Her eyelids flew open. He was still crouched above her, but he was no longer gripping her hair. The scalpel fell from his hand. Something warm dribbled onto her face. Blood.

Not hers, but his.

He toppled backward and vanished from her line of vision.

Already resigned to her own death, now Rizzoli lay stunned by the prospect that she would live. She struggled to take in a host of details at once. She saw the lightbulb swaying like a bright moon on a string. On the wall, shadows moved. Turning her head, she saw Catherine Cordell’s arm drop weakly back to the bed.

Saw the gun slide from Cordell’s hand and thud to the floor.

In the distance, a siren wailed.